In an Atlantic salmon farming centre located in Chile, the Norwegian company Aker BioMarine Antarctic developed a feeding trial at a commercial scale that showed that those specimens, whose diet was supplemented with krill meal, grew bigger.

According to the company, when the study ended, krill fed salmon had acquired 11 per cent greater body weight than that of the fish in the control group.

Furthermore, four months after feeding them with Qrill TM, researchers sampled salmon heart tissue and found an increase of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid concentration, Aqua reported.

In Norway, controlled studies on krill meal consumption by young specimens of Atlantic salmon had already been done before. It was found that the fish ate more and grew quicker thanks to Qrill TM.

This time, proponents of the initiative wanted to find out what their growth was under actual farming conditions.

The specimens, with an initial weight of 190 grams, were placed into 16 pools. Half of the fish were fed with a commercial diet and half were fed with the same diet but which had 10 per cent Qrill TM fishmeal dietary modification.

At the conclusion of the trial, the salmon in the Qrill TM group had increased to 741 grams, that is to say, 74 grams (11 per cent) more than the control group.

"Experiments on a commercial scale will inevitably be hampered by uncertainty due to the limited opportunity we will have to control all the factors that come into play," said Sigve Nordrum, of the Norwegian biotechnology company Aker BioMarine Antarctic.

"On the other hand, salmon farmers and food companies often want to verify the results got in small-scale tests on a commercial scale before the full implementation of all the new food ingredients is applied," he added.

According to Nordrum, "This case study showed that the previous results in controlled experiments can be played on a commercial scale experiment and Qrill TM inclusion leads to increased body weight in farmed salmon."